come close

idiom

1
: to almost do something
We didn't win, but we came close.
often + to
The band came very close to breaking up.
We came close to winning the championship this season.
2
: to be similar to something or as good as expected
She said they taste just like real hot dogs, but they don't even come close (to the real thing).

Examples of come close in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Since Mike Alden resigned in 2015 after 17 years on the job, the second-longest tenure for an athletic boss in school history, MU hasn’t come close to matching that stability. Blair Kerkhoff, Kansas City Star, 27 Apr. 2024 But the first season set the bar impossibly high for the second, and the new season can’t come close to clearing it. Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 18 Apr. 2024 No total solar eclipse of recent memory has been as spectacular, astronomers say, and none in the next two decades will come close to recapturing its majesty. Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 10 Apr. 2024 The only markets to come close were urban Hawaii, up 7.4 percent, and Boston, up 6.8 percent. Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Apr. 2024 Very few sculptures from that period come close to his beautiful forms. Vogue, 17 Apr. 2024 The opposition didn’t even come close in their spending. Mike Hendricks, Kansas City Star, 16 Apr. 2024 But Metro officials are expressing more worry, saying existing federal grants won’t come close to the amount needed to pull off another L.A. traffic miracle. Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2024 Google has been working on podcasts in various shapes and forms since 2016 and has never even come close to putting all the pieces together. David Pierce, The Verge, 2 Apr. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'come close.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Dictionary Entries Near come close

Cite this Entry

“Come close.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/come%20close. Accessed 5 May. 2024.

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